


forgive me my salt (my decades of taking)

by blondsak



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Other: See Story Notes, Post-Endgame, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 11:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18387185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondsak/pseuds/blondsak
Summary: In the years after the Avengers undo the Snap, Tony learns to live both with and without himself.





	forgive me my salt (my decades of taking)

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains a twist that might be slightly disturbing to some. If you prefer to know the twist going in, please see endnotes.
> 
> Title taken from a Brenna Twohy poem.

If two years ago someone had told Tony he’d have more nightmares of Peter Parker’s death after the Undoing than he did after the Snap, he’d have laughed in their face. But, waking up in a sweat ( _cold_ ) for the eighth night in a row ( _alone_ ), he grimly thinks to himself how he’s been wrong about a great many things that have come to pass. Altogether, this is a relatively small failure of foresight to put on a much larger mental list of failures he studies like there’s a daily pop quiz.

Still half-asleep, he gets out of his bed at the tower penthouse (bought back from OsCorp two months post-Undoing) and heads for the bathroom, FRIDAY turning the lights to the dimmest setting as soon as he rounds the doorway. Perhaps it’s due to the remnants of the nightmare, or the desire that thrums through every beat of his heart since the day he lost the kid ( _again_ ), but for a split second he glances in the mirror and instead of himself he sees Peter, the real _Peter_. For a split second he forgets his greatest failure and thinks _you’re back_ and _kid_ and _thank god_ and spins around. But his waking life is now no better or worse than his nightmares it seems ( _cold, alone_ ), and Peter is not here.

The next day Tony covers up every mirror in his quarters. He never wants to turn around in hope only to see nothing but empty air ever again.

\--

Until the Undoing, he could go days without sleep, and often did. It used to bother Peter a great deal, coming to visit him at the compound only to find Tony in the same rumpled clothes he was wearing when they said goodbye days earlier.

_I’ve been reading studies about the long-term effects of sleep deprivation, Mr. Stark, and they’re not pleasant. Please get some rest? For me if not for yourself._

Damn those puppy eyes, because as much as Tony grumbled he always would go lay down after those visits from the kid, telling himself it wasn’t because of his pleading, Tony really was just that tired. What he’d give for a lecture on sleep from Peter Parker now.

Since the Undoing, he can’t seem to go more than 22 hours without his body going haywire on him, hand tremors and headaches and complete exhaustion leading him to his bed, or when he really pushes his limits just curling up in a corner of his lab.

He also eats more these days, though he isn’t sure how much of that is pure biological need and how much is that he’s no longer drinking his calories. He remembers coming back to his suite at the compound the fourth day after the Undoing and making a beeline for his wet bar, desperately seeking a way to quiet the unbearable pain in his gut, the bittersweet memories in his head, the constant flashes of a piercing loss he was only just beginning to name. However, it only took two fingers of bourbon before the buzzing in the back of his head started up, and only 1 ½ glasses more before he was on the edge of a toilet, a terrible migraine invading every one of his senses.

Besides the irregular sleeping, the kid had only ever come after Tony for one other thing: how much he drank. When he woke up on the fifth morning, feeling fit as a fiddle, he could only chuckle bitterly at the irony.

\--

Oddly, the person Tony spends the most time with these days isn’t Rhodey, or Pepper, or Happy, or any of the Avengers. It’s Ned Leeds, now 19 and working as a software developer for SI. Tony had called him the day after Midtown’s graduation ceremony, making him a generous offer despite knowing the kid had gotten into MIT. Perhaps the prospect of college without his best friend by his side had made four years at an elite academic institution lose its luster, because Ned didn’t hesitate before accepting.

At first Tony keeps his distance, keeping a close eye on Ned’s progress in his assigned department but never interfering. Then eight months in, Ned received a promotion and Tony on a whim decided to stop by his office and congratulate him. Tony had been pleasantly surprised to find that Ned’s grin at seeing him was genuine. The next day Tony invited his young friend (not _the kid_ , never _the kid_ ) up to Tony’s private lab over his lunch break, and his visits have continued apace ever since.

It's a far cry from having Peter there. Ned has all the enthusiasm Peter had, but where Peter had absolutely blown other teenagers out of the water with his advanced knowledge of chemistry and mechanical engineering, Ned’s true strengths are in coding and equations. Still, Ned is brilliant and just as much of a sponge as Pete had been, and it didn’t take long for Tony to come to look forward to his frequent visits.

Ned nearly always asks for a hug before he goes, and though Tony hates to be touched ( _I don’t deserve this_ ) possibly more than ever before, he never says no.

\--

He and Pepper aren’t _not_ together, but they are also no longer _together_. Since Peter’s death the soft touches, the long gazes, the nights curled up tight around each other… they have faded as though they were only a fever dream, a product of a life Tony was no longer allowed to live ( _too close to home_ ).

Of course, they’ve never actually spoken about it. He and Pepper have always done their best talking with the language of bodies, and the way Pepper studiously avoids locking eyes or wrapping arms around waists tells him all he needs to know ( _I’m sorry, I can’t_ ). However, she still dutifully comes every Sunday night for dinner at the penthouse, the one ritual from their relationship that hasn’t died. 

It’s on one of those Sunday nights that he finally has the courage to push. It’s been nearly two years since everyone came back ( _almost everyone_ ), and for months Tony has been feeling like the two of them need to shit or get off the pot. 

They’re halfway through their gnocchi and side salads when he says, almost casually, “You know I still love you, don’t you.”

He feels more than sees Pepper pause and stare at her half-eaten pile of pasta, before she carefully puts down her fork. “I still love you too, Tony,” she says finally, grabbing her napkin to dab at her lips.

Tony catches her wrist as she goes to grab her fork again, the first time they’ve actually touched intimately since a week after the Undoing, when he had sobbed into her neck, moaning and pleading for Peter to come back, to have made _the right choice_. 

She immediately stills, stares at their clasped hands before her gaze trails up to his eyes. “What are you asking me for, Tony?”

Tony taps his foot a few times, a nervous tic he developed after Peter died the last time. “Stay with me, Pep. Please? Just tonight.”

Pepper doesn’t flinch or look away at the question, and Tony thinks maybe, just maybe she’ll say yes. Maybe there really is a way to fix this, even if he can’t fix anything else. But then she pulls her hand away, grabs her fork again, and the chance is gone along with his last sliver of hope.

“I’m sorry, Tony, but I can’t,” she says, taking another bite. When Tony doesn’t reply, she goes on. “It’s just, it’s too different. I still love you but things are so different now.”

“Do you think that could ever change for you?” Tony asks. _Because I can wait_ , he almost adds, but he sees clearly now where this conversation is headed and voicing that undeniable truth just feels too pathetic.

“I don’t know,” Pepper replies, stabbing her fork into the last of her gnocchi.

That night, before she leaves, she gives him a hug and kiss on the cheek. But she’s right that things are different now, because the hug conveys a different kind of intimacy, reminding him more of how his mother would hold him to say goodnight than a lover’s embrace. 

She never gives her ring back to him, but he doesn’t see her wear it again after that night. He never pushes again.

 _I’ll wait for you_.

\--

“The stones are fickle, and not always concerned with what we call morality,” Strange says to him, the one time Tony seeks him out. He’s never forgiven the doctor for giving up the Time Stone on Titan, because no matter how much he can nearly accept that Strange wasn’t actually lying ( _it was the only way_ ), he still can’t fathom that the awful loss that resulted was as absolutely inevitable as Strange believes it to be.

“When you put on the gauntlet, the stones listened to you because they believed you - like Thanos - to be worthy of wielding them. Likewise, I believe they recognized Peter to be worthy, and listened to him as well.”

“But he was just seventeen, a damn _child_. How could they possibly decide he was old enough to truly understand what he was giving up?”

“Yes,” Strange agrees, “he was a child. But he was a child who had suffered greatly, who had risked bravely and who had loved with abandon. The stones don’t perceive age as we do, if at all. In fact, I’m beginning to suspect they see very little as we do, including life and death. In their eyes, he had earned the right to morph reality into what he desired so very badly, which was for you not to die. Perhaps the stones saw what occurred after as a way to allow you both a chance to live out your desires.”

Tony shakes his head, his voice cracking. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, Strange. You won’t ever get me to believe otherwise.”

“Time alters many perceptions, Tony,” Strange replies softly, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I cannot imagine his soul is not at peace now. The stones may not subscribe to a set moral code, but simply based on their known collective history, I believe they bend toward what we might call justice. And there is no justifiable reality in which Peter Parker is now suffering.”

\--

It had only been about 6 months before the Snap that Tony and May had really fallen into a solid groove with one another. She had finally seemed to accept that - despite his disastrous early screw-ups handling the kid’s emotional extremes - Tony truly did have Peter’s best interests at heart, and since then had embraced him as a co-parent. They would text each other every few days and talk on the phone every few weeks. At the beginning it was just business - him letting her know how Spider-Man was doing, her letting him in on a few personal updates about Peter - but gradually it morphed into more of a friendship, an understanding that they were united in making sure his amazing kid survived long enough to become an amazing man.

Nowadays, there were no texts, no phone calls. She didn’t reach out, and out of respect ( _shame, guilt, failure_ ) he also kept his distance. But then, on the morning of what would have been Peter’s 20th birthday, his phone beeps.

_Come over tonight. 7pm._

He arrives at 7:03, bottle of wine in one hand and a bouquet of daisies in the other. May opens the door, and Tony is mildly surprised to find no tell-tale signs of tears as she looks him up and down in his designer suit and sunglasses.

“I uh, brought you a cabernet,” Tony stutters out finally. “Seem to remember that was your favorite.”

“Thank you,” she says quietly, ushering him in. Dinner is already set out: homemade lasagna, an old Parker family recipe that the kid had once confided to him was _the only dish May never messes up_ and which also happened to be Peter’s favorite. “I just finished setting the table.”

At first they eat in silence, but after she nervously downs a glass of wine, May asks him how SI is doing these days and he gladly takes the olive branch, going on at length about new projects and his lab days with Ned and how Pepper is in Mumbai for the grand opening of a new satellite. May pours herself another glass, then another. By the time they have both finished eating dessert, her eyes are bright and her smile warm.

“And how are _you_ doing, Tony?” she finally asks as she resettles in her chair after putting their dishes in the sink. 

“I’m…” Tony doesn’t know how to answer that. The truth is too miserable, but he also can’t lie to May, not after all she has lost because of him. “I’m okay, I guess. Or trying to be. It's just... I don't know who I'm supposed to be these days, or even who I am anymore.”

He stares down at his lap then, before feeling cool fingers land on his chin. “Look at me,” May says, her voice a whisper. “Please, Tony, look at me.”

The request must break a tiny dam in Tony’s soul because his eyes are tearing up even before he lifts his head to look into her own watery features. They hold the gaze for one minute, maybe even two, before May moves to rub her thumbs over his angular cheekbones, tear tracks disappearing with that one loving gesture. She pulls away then, looking anywhere but him, and the moment is gone as quickly as it came.

“I should go,” he says

“No,” May says, so forcefully that he lets his butt fall back on the seat he was already halfway out of. “I mean, it’s already nearing ten. Why don’t you just stay here? You can take his bedroom.”

“May, I can’t do that,” Tony replies, shaking his head.

“Why not?”

“You know _why not_ ,” he snaps back without thinking, and catches the tiniest of a flinch. Then, “God, I’m sorry, May. I shouldn’t ever speak to you like that.”

May waves a hand, but still won’t look at him. “It’s okay, I understand. Maybe better than anyone.”

Before he leaves that evening, May goes in for a hug. Tony is once again reminded of his mother’s arms, of Pepper’s last embrace.

“Take care of yourself, Tony. It’s what he would have wanted,” May whispers in his ear before letting go.

 _For me if not for yourself_ , the ghost of a kid long gone breathes in his other ear as the door to the Parker apartment shuts. He can’t help the shiver of familiar grief that flows over him, every hair on his arms standing up as though there really had been the last two Parkers there in that doorway just now.

In a way, Tony supposed there had.

\--

Hanging out regularly with your dead kid’s best friend means sometimes things get suddenly somber. For example, sometimes Ned would make a witty quip at Tony’s expense and Tony would on reflex reply “watch it, kid” and then go quiet, his jaw tightening at unbidden memories. 

Usually when moments like these happened they’d both work in silence til the tension passed or Ned would make a polite but quick exit. But just as Tony would expect from the best friend of Peter Parker, when Ned got a bee in his bonnet he couldn’t stay quiet for long.

“Do you think you’ll ever let the world know that Peter was Spider-Man?” Ned asks him after another slip-up, slicing straight through the tension and making Tony’s jaw unhinge as he glanced over at the teen.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Leeds.”

“Why?”

Tony turns back to his project and away from Ned, trying to hide a scowl. “Why? Maybe because the public, the media, SI’s board, hell, all but the top dogs at SHIELD would have a lot of questions and frankly I don’t have any adequate answers.”

Ned worries at his lip, clearly unsure if delving into such devastatingly emotional territory was a safe bet where Tony is concerned. Tony wants to tell him it isn’t, but before he could Ned plows through anyway. “It’s just, everyone thinks Spider-Man chose to stop, that he got scared and quit. There are just so many wrong theories out there and I don’t feel like it’s fair to Peter -”

“ _Fair to Peter?_ ” Tony interrupts incredulously, dropping his tools and turning around to face Ned head-on. “Here’s the thing, Ned-O, as much as I would like to be _fair to Peter_ , I’m still kinda reeling from just how _unfair_ losing him has been for me. And to be honest, I’m still pretty goddamn pissed off at him for leaving me in this fucking situation in the first place. So yeah, all respect to your dead best friend, but you don’t get to lecture me about what’s fair to Peter when Peter was anything but fair to any of us, and especially me.”

Ned listens to his rant in silence. Tony supposes maybe six months ago he would have stood down, cowed in the presence of so much honest bitterness and grief. But after countless hours of working next to Tony, of becoming not just his mentee but a true friend, Ned holds his ground.

“You’re right, Tony, it wasn’t fair. And maybe it was selfish of Peter, yeah, but it was also the choice he made and you need to try to respect it.”

“Respect it?” Tony throws back, his voice filled with venom. “You go through one day, Leeds, _one day_ like I have these last few years” - he gestures wildly at himself, then at the room - “and then tell me if you could possibly respect it. Peter got away with a terrible horrible fucking no-good decision as far as I’m concerned, and he left a hell of a mess in his wake. And now I - I’m-”

Tony, feeling the beginnings of a panic attack, slowly leans over and purposely falls to the ground on his hands and knees, trying to steady himself.

“Whoa, Tony, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Ned says, coming to his side and rubbing his back. “It’s alright, just breathe, I’m sorry.”

Somehow Tony manages to stay in control of himself, and after a few deep breaths mutters, “Please Ned, just go. I’ll see you again soon, but please - just go.”

Ned tenses, his hand falling away from between Tony’s shoulder blades. He stands up and Tony can hear him gathering up his things over the blood rushing in his head. Just as he gets to the elevator, he hears Ned clearly whisper, “I miss him too,” before he disappears beyond the automatic doors.

\--

“Tony, you can’t keep holing up all the time in the tower,” Pepper tells him, over three years after the Undoing. “It’s not good for business, and more importantly it’s not good for you. I’ve begun to plan a big event, something to get you back in the good graces of the public eye, but I’m going to need you to trust me on this one, okay?”

Tony nods, and though the very thought of it fills him with dread ( _shame, guilt, failure_ ) he agrees because he really does trust Pepper. And that’s how Tony ends up hosting a giant 21st birthday party for the late Tony Stark’s heir, Peter Parker.

In addition to dozens of big names in the sustainable energy and tech sectors, Pepper has also made sure to invite those closer to Tony. Rhodey comes up from D.C., while Natasha and Clint have returned from some covert SHIELD mission. May and Ned are there too, and both go in for hugs, to Tony’s surprise.

Of everyone, though, Tony was perhaps most nervous about seeing Steve. 

Steve, who had been the one to hold Tony when he’d first emerged again from the soul stone after wielding the gauntlet. 

Steve, who had been the one who had mistaken Tony’s muttering of _no no no_ as he looked down at his suit ( _Item 17-A_ ) and the ensuing howls as he lifted his mask and felt his face ( _I’ll catch you_ ) for those of a scared and grieving child. 

Steve, who held him and shushed him with _Peter, it’s gonna be okay_ and _Peter, he loved you so much_ until he’d finally heard among Tony’s incoherent sobs, _I’m not Peter_.

Steve, who now finds Tony out on the balcony of his penthouse while inside, floors down, the party continues.

“Getting some fresh air?”

Tony smirks, but continues to look out over the lights of the city. “Something like that. It’s just a lot for me in there, what with the lights and noise and all.”

Steve hums an agreement, but says nothing further, coming to sit shoulder-to-shoulder next to Tony as they both look upon the buildings of Manhattan.

“Y’know, even now, I still expect to see him webbing over from blocks away after a night of patrolling,” Tony says after a few minutes, rubbing at his forehead. “Even when I’m the one walking around with his face and his damn spidey sense, I still keep a lookout for Spider-Man.”

“If he was here in your place, I have a feeling he’d be saying the same thing about Iron Man.”

The tears that had been pooling in his eyes since he’d left the party were now spilling over in earnest. “I’m still so angry. It’s like a fucking specter following me around, but it’s not just because the kid is gone, it’s all my dead dreams. For his life, and for mine.”

Steve leans into him a bit more, sighing. “I don’t think anyone blames you for that, Tony. What happened… you didn’t just lose Peter, you lost your own life in a way too. That you struggle with it is not something anyone else could ever judge you for.”

Tony shakes his head. “You don’t understand. I _felt_ him in the soul stone, Steve. When I put on that gauntlet, for just those few moments before it all came undone, I felt him there, as close to me as you are now. I felt him realize what was happening, that I wasn’t coming back with him, and I felt him wrestle away the stones’ power by sheer determination, while I pleaded with him to stop.”

“But he didn't listen to you, and they did listen to him.”

“They did, damn it all. Kid never met a person who didn’t fall in love with him, why would the damn infinity stones be any different.”

Steve chuckles grimly, before turning solemn once more. “Tony, for better or worse, the stones listened to Peter. Which means this had to have been what he really wanted. I know it doesn’t make any sense, and it probably never will, but Peter gave you his life. And you have to try to live it for him. Not just survive, but actually live it in a way that honors the person Peter was, and wanted to be.”

“And how do you propose I do that, Capsicle?”

“I don’t know, but I trust you to figure something out. And so did Peter.”

\--

Tony remembers reading a novel once, maybe by Vonnegut, that talked about mirrors being “leaks” between two universes. For years now, he’s avoided mirrors precisely because he’s scared of the leak that is his very life, of seeing two realities collide together into a gross approximation of the kid he so desperately loved ( _still loves_ ).

And as young and healthy and enhanced as the body Tony now inhabits is, it still feels like a cruel mockery of what he’d fought so hard to bring back.

But Strange, Ned, Steve… they were right too, Tony now accepts. Peter made his choice, and maybe he didn’t realize when he made it that Tony would not come back as himself. Or maybe he did realize, and he didn’t care.

It doesn’t really matter, Tony thinks to himself as he finishes pulling down the last of the mirror curtains in his penthouse to reveal Peter Parker’s face staring back at him. 

_I love you_ , Tony thinks as he looks into his reflection. _I didn’t want things to be this way_ , he mourns as he takes in his doe eyes. _I’ll never give up_ , he promises as he brushes a hand through his curls. 

_For me if not for yourself_ , his mind replies in the kid’s voice.

“FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Boss?”

“Unlock Item 17-A. It’s time Spider-Man made a comeback.”

**Author's Note:**

> Note: this story contains bodyswap and related body image and relationship issues.


End file.
